Players seriously interested in gambling games often read about the games from books or the Internet. This is true of craps players as well. In craps literature the terms “right bettors” and “wrong bettors” are used quite frequently. Many players ignore these terms because they do not help in understanding the game or improving the strategy. But these terms have a very interesting history that is worth knowing. Sometimes it helps to clear the table by removing unwanted paraphernalia. Likewise, it is essential to get rid of the connotations of right and wrong that are irrelevant but can be confusing. Right and wrong do not refer to correct and incorrect. Right bettors are not those who use correct strategy and wrong bettors are not those who use incorrect strategy. Similarly right betters are not those who play ethically and wrong bettors are not those who wager using unethical means.

The origin of the terms right bettors and wrong bettors has a technical basis. In land casino craps games one of the players rolls the dice and is called the shooter. He will continue to roll the dice till he loses. This losing and winning has nothing to do with the bets placed but is dependent only on the outcome of the rolls. If the shooter throws 2, 3 or 12 in the come out roll he loses. If he throws 7 or 11 in the come out roll he wins and can start a new come out roll. If the outcome is any other number then that number is established as the point. Subsequently, if the shooter throws the point before 7 then he wins and if he throws 7 before the point then he loses. Bets that win when the shooter wins are called right bets and the players who make these bets are called right bettors. Bets that win when the shooter loses are called wrong bets and the players who make these bets are called wrong bettors.

The history lies in why players began betting against the shooter. At first players could only bet on the shooter winning. Unscrupulous casino operators began to use loaded dice that increased the chances of the shooter losing. It was impossible to tell if a die was fair by inspecting it. Even otherwise it was difficult to distinguish between a run of bad luck and outcomes with loaded dice. Gamblers are an ingenuous lot and they devised a simple mechanism to overcome this problem. Craps players were allowed to bet against the shooter. They could bet that the shooter would lose and if the shooter then lost their bets would win. These bets came to be referred to as wrong bets because they favored the “wrong” or hitherto undesirable outcome. Therefore the bets that the shooter would win automatically came to be known as right bets.

At first craps players bet against the shooter only when they perceived that the dice were loaded. In due course it became counterproductive to load the dice one way or the other. With fair dice the shooter is equally likely to win or lose. Players now have the option of being right bettors or wrong bettors based on their gut feeling. In practice, most craps players wager on the shooter winning. At land casinos they can be heard cheering the shooter and calling for 7 or 11 in the come out roll.